Google Keyword Planner: what is it and how to work with it

To facilitate SEO and PPC professionals’ work, search engine has Google Keywords Planner. The service will make it easier to compile the semantic core and perform the clustering of web queries. With it, both Google Ads and contextual advertising settings, and website promotion will cause fewer problems, because the selection of keywords will be much faster. But what is Google Ads Keyword Planner? Let’s find out.

What is Google Keyword Planner

Google Ads Keyword Planner is a special service that simplifies work with keywords. Google Keyword Planner is indispensable for those whose profession is related to Internet marketing, because it makes it easier to select keywords for Google for free. But it is not all of its benefits. Keyword planner has the following advantages as well: 

• data comes directly from Google; 
• helps to compile a semantic core quite quickly; 
• allows you to integrate ready-made keyword lists with advertising. 

After defining what Google Keyword Planner is, let’s move on to learning its features. 

Possibilities of Google Keyword Planner

You need Google Ads account to get access to Google Keyword Planner. But how to enter Google Keyword Planner?

1. Go to ads.google.com.
2. Enter login and password.
3. Find Tools and Preferences tab and then Keyword Planner.

After these simple steps, you will be able to fully use Keyword Planner. But what can you determine with Google Keyword Planner help? You will have two workspaces. One helps to search for keys on the Internet and collect semantics. The second allows you to view statistics, estimated number of clicks and conversions.

Terminology

Before moving on to using Google Keyword Planner, you need to remember the terminology and understand what web queries are. Based on the user’s goals, there are: 

1. Navigational. Allow you to find a specific website. 
2. Informational. Queries aimed at answering a specific user’s question. 
3. Multimedia. Contain media content. 
4. Transactional. With their help, people want to buy something specific, but have not yet decided where to buy it. 

But while choosing keywords for queries, keep in mind that even if your queries contain keywords, they can lead to non-targeted traffic. In this regard, there are such types of keywords that match web queries: 

1. Broad. Your ad is displayed on keyword-like queries. Ads may also contain one of the keywords, and these words may be listed in any order. For example, the key query is car tires. In case of broad matching ads will be displayed on such requests: tires, car, buy car tires, car tires and so on. 
2. Phrase. Ads will be displayed on queries that match a specific phrase and completely repeat the order of words, including other phrases. So if your query is car tires, then the ad won’t be displayed on query types of car tires. 
3. Exact. Your ads will be shown on queries that exactly match the keyword’s form and order of the words, with no extra words in the query. It means that ads will be shown only on request car tires.

How to choose keywords in the service

Let’s move on to using Google Ads Keyword Planner. Use the instructions below to understand how to quickly gather keywords in Google Ads Keyword Planner.

Selecting keywords process

In the service you select the area «keyword selection». Then enter the keys, there may be up to ten. Based on them, keyword planner will release new ones. To make keyword searches better, you can specify a website domain and add geotargeting. As a result, you’ll see a table with other useful information: average monthly number of impressions of a given keyword, seasonality and competitiveness of the keyword and the estimated cost-per-click.

Keywords list expanding

The service offers additional keyword phrases of your choice that you can add to the list. Additionally, Google Keyword Planner extension offers a search hint collection feature. With its help, it is easy to collect keys in different languages. 

Clear keyword list

Typically, the service produces several hundred keywords, and to filter them quickly, this tool is equipped with a special feature — «Refine keywords». To do this, select it and set necessary parameters. The tool then deletes irrelevant queries.

Grouping of keys

Once your keyword search and cleanup is complete, move on to the grouping. On the Grouped Options page, you can see filtered keyword groups that you can use for individual ad campaigns.

Analysis of competitors’ keywords

But the possibilities of the service do not end here. This service allows not only to search for keywords, but also determines keys used by competitors. To do this, simply go to the «Specify website» tab and enter the URL of the competitor’s site.  There are some analogues of Google Keyword Planner, such as Keyword Planner from Serpstat and Keywords Explorer from Ahrefs, but none is comparable to the original, as it contains the widest range of features that can greatly facilitate the work.